Polk County’s executive and District 3 commissioners sent clear messages to the crowd gathered at the Copper Basin Community Center – the senior center is not closing, rumors are false, and they intended all along for the seniors to have all the room they need to continue their activities.
County Executive Robby Hatcher told the crowd they were going to hit “a hard reset...we start anew” as he began the discussion over the final item on the commission’s August 15 agenda. That item said, “False Accusations Community Center.”
At the beginning of the meeting, Hatcher had removed the lock and chain, and opened the huge curtain that had divided the large community room for months. This has been a major problem for senior center activities, giving seniors only about half the room they previously had for their daily gatherings.
“We’re going to get this worked out,” Hatcher said as discussion over rumors and problems began.
District 3 Commissioner Samantha Trantham was quick to say, “We didn’t want this closed,” of the curtain, and District 3 Commissioner Keith Barker echoed, “We never voted to close the curtain.” Both commissioners were addressing rumors on social media and spread by individuals that said otherwise.
Barker continued his statement saying, there has “never been any mention” of the facility being lost as a senior center or it closing.
“We never wanted to take anything away,” Trantham said, as she and Barker echoed their obvious displeasure over all the rumors spread in recent weeks.
Commissioner Greg Brooks, chairman of the commission’s building committee, said the goal had been to “make it (the community center) work for everybody. He told the seniors that both Hatcher, and County Clerk Jackie Rogers, had insisted the committee, “Make sure the seniors are taken care of.”
Rogers’ office had to be moved to the community center after Copper Basin Medical Center was sold to the City of Ducktown and while a new Polk County Courthouse is built on the East Side of the county. She needed an office in the building that had housed computers used by the seniors along with other equipment. The computers and equipment had been moved into the large community room. But when the curtain was closed, the seniors found themselves in cramped space.
“We’re upset that ya’all had to go through all this,” Brooks said of the fear that had been heard over the center’s possible closing and the cramped space.
That fear had risen to the point someone or several someones contacted State Senator Art Swann, who in turn wrote a letter to all commissioners voicing his support of the center. Swann called the citizens his “constituents.”
Hatcher took objection to the letter, saying Swann was nothing but a “lame duck,” and reminding everyone he had only visited Polk County two times since the county became part of his senatorial district following redistricting. This despite Hatcher asking him to spend six to eight hours so he could be shown his new senatorial responsibility first hand.
Hatcher said the state senator had never called him over the senior center situation or any other, yet the county executive has regular contact with the state representative and well as the county’s representation at the federal level.
Commissioners listened to the concerns of the seniors, who, after hearing the commissioners’ side of the story, the majority voiced their appreciation and understanding.
Hatcher asked, and the commissioners agreed, that he be allowed to give up his office in the community center for use by the seniors.
Following the meeting, several commissioners, Hatcher, Rogers, and a couple of volunteers, moved the computers from the community room into Hatcher’s old office where they could be locked up as the state requires, cleared out a small office that had become cluttered and blocked a fire exit, and removed several items of surplus property from the hallway leading to the new “computer room.”